Hey Mathrim-welcome aboard-a new face here
Well I don't want this to go the way of so many and remain unfinished so I will endeavour to continue
O' Flower of Scotland-A Scotland The Old Gods AAR
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Hey Mathrim-welcome aboard-a new face here
Well I don't want this to go the way of so many and remain unfinished so I will endeavour to continue
If it helps, I just found this AAR and I like what I see.
Congratulations on fighting off two separate Claimant revolts at once, even if you only got out of it through luck.
Hey Warlord. Thanks mate and welcome aboard. Yes it was rather fortuitous I have to say. Just wait til you see what happens next...
A’ Mòr Cogadu Sìobhalta (The Great Civil Wars)
1222-1234
Paul Murray Kendall (1972)
2. The Nephew’s Revolt
Because the casus belli had been removed namely the Pretender Adam de Gowrie, a helpless Uhtred was powerless to discipline his errant Lords. It could not be done without incurring the wrath of the rest of his fractious magnates anyway-whether he could have envisaged the hornets nest of resentment that his change to the succession laws would garner cannot be determined but he was truly reaping the whirlwind. So between 1226 and 1227 a febrile year passed with the ageing monarch seemingly ignorant of or unable to do anything about the threat brewing right beneath his nose. All the intelligence told the king that the next challenge was without, one of any number of disaffected Dukes, when in actual fact it was being stoked from within.
In the summer of 1227 the King decided to bide the warmer months in Wales-he felt that he had for too long neglected this territory which, whilst technically a part of Scotland still saw itself as a separate realm with its own customs and fierce traditions. As was his wont the King travelled with a small army, his personal retinue now numbering some 5000 highly trained heavy infantry, cavalry both light and heavy and the feared Schiltrom pikemen.
Maybe it was serendipity but the monarch was still en route when word reached him of another major uprising. Once more it was not confined to any one of his three Kingdoms but all three: Wales, Ireland and Scotland had once more risen in revolt against their liege. Early intelligence indicated that two of his nephews led the rebellion: Duke Ewan II of Munster, the brother of his erstwhile spymaster and 2nd son of his deceased brother Roderick who led an army of three thousand in Wales whilst his vassals in Ireland mustered a further five thousand. He claimed the throne of Ireland. Meanwhile the eldest son of his late brother Andrew, Duke Macbeth of the Isles had summonsed most of Scotland to his banners and mustered an army of no fewer than ten thousand declaring righteously that Uhtred was a tyrant and that Mac Ailpin rule would be better served with him as King of Scots. Within weeks the rebel Dukes had called most of the nobility of Scotland and Ireland to their sides-only the King’s own lands, vassals and those of his sons remained loyal. It was the most serious challenge to his authority yet and one that, like Adam De Gowrie’s uprising, threatened to forcibly remove Uhtred’s scion from the monarchy forever.
The march south through enemy held Yorkshire and Cheshire must have been fraught but if the old King was fearful he did not show it instead commending his Lords for the excellent bearing and training of the Royal Army.
‘If there are ten thousand thousand of the ilk of Munster and Macbeth then let them come aye!’ He is said to have exclaimed to his down-at-heel sons. As usual he travelled with Thomas and Robert whilst his heir, William, was left in Scone to supervise the town’s defence. Whether he truly believed his own bravado we will never know but all contemporary reports speak of a King seemingly confident for the challenges ahead…
Except there was no way that Uhtred could win this war. He was faced with eighteen thousand rebels and he only had the Royal Army of one-third that number. And though at Rhyll he comprehensively defeated the main rebel force in Wales he must have known that the odds were not in his favour.
I have chosen Robyn Young’s superbly researched novel ‘Insurrection’ to bring to life the drama of the time:
12th August 1228
The King’s Camp besieging the Castle of Denbigh
‘Let me through! I seek the King!’ The Herald shouted barrelling his way past the unruly throng that prevented him from taking a clear path to the Monarch’s Pavilion. An eagle eyed guard spotted the cognizance of Meath on his tabard and realising that it could only mean a missive from the Duke, the King’s son from Scone, he shouldered his way towards him.
‘Let the man through! Out of the way Sirs!’ This in rough Scots and using his own not inconsiderable bulk and his pike he helped expedite a route to the Pavilion entrance.
‘Thank you sir’ was all the messenger could mouth before being pushed roughly inside. Within the spacious tent another guard appraised him coolly before asking his business. The messenger thrust his scroll with its recognisable seal into the other man’s face: it had the desired effect.
‘Sire a messenger from your son the Duke of Meath!’ This to an inner tent that was covered from view by muslin curtains.
‘Let him come.’ The dialogue was the lilting Scots tongue. Taking his cue the Herald approached the parting, kneeling low at the sound of rustling bed sheets. Presently the King appeared, still in his bedclothes-he looked frail and gaunt, only recently having recovered from another particularly severe bout of camp fever.
‘My Liege-mayhap you should also summon your-‘ But a commotion without told him that Prince Robert, the King’s trusty warrior son and Chancellor, had just appeared and approaching quietly from behind he snatched the scroll from the Herald’s hands.
‘Sire I have ill tidings.’ The Emissary had switched to Latin through force of habit-it was the tongue of the nobility after all.
But Prince Robert was not in a mood for dissembling ‘Father it’s mama…she-she has died.’ His face was sad as he scanned the hastily written note from his elder brother. ‘She was frail, took ill and died. Father I am sorry.’
The King had remained silent all the while and the Herald could not see his face, kneeling low as he was but he could hear the sobbing of a sick old man as he was roughly hauled to his feet and propelled from the Pavilion: a King’s grief was not for public consumption…
Queen Deirdre had died from natural causes, the term of her deterioration being no longer than a few weeks. It is said that the King was beside himself with grief. Whether this is actually true has been debated by historians through the centuries -there is no evidence in any of the records that indicate that this was a love match-something very rare in Mediaeval times. What is not in doubt is the marriage offer that was made one year later to the powerful monarch King Bonifacio of Italy for the hand of his youngest daughter, the fifteen-year-old Principessa Tomasina. It was to be a fateful marriage. Why it should be debated is somewhat spurious: one year was plenty of time to grieve. To ally himself to one of the great powers of Europe was common sense. Uhtred had remained in Wales with his small force praying against all hope that the large rebel army to their north would remain there for the time being. If his enemies in Ireland or Scotland moved down to take him on then he knew and so did everyone associated with him, that he would be utterly destroyed. It must have been with something of a sense of deja-vu that Uhtred assessed his position in the spring and summer of 1229: outnumbered, beset on all sides by rebel magnates this time led by blood kin and followed only by his own Royal retainers, his own vassals and his two younger sons. Was there a plan? It is hard to say-maybe Uhtred believed that God would intervene: it had happened before, after all, when Adam de Gowrie had suddenly died in 1225-why not again now? If there was a design, however, beyond fervent prayers to the almighty none have recorded it.
The young new Queen of Scots and Ireland did not head for Scone, which was threatened by rebels, but made straight for the King’s lodging at Denbigh castle in North Wales. She was already proving no winsome wallflower but a young girl of mettle and if any thought it a scandal that such an old man should be wed to such a young girl, not yet in her majority, then none showed it. The Queen arrived in June 1229, she turned sixteen a couple of months later-she was pregnant by August 1230.
More significantly however was what her father did in December 1229. There is no doubt from all contemporary sources that the King of Italy doted on his youngest child and to that end was quick to offer Italian arms to support Uhtred in his war effort-after all if Uhtred failed then things would not be good for his daughter. At that time the Scots King was one of the most highly regarded monarchs in Europe-to help would be an honour and a privilege: here is a contemporary translation from Latin of his correspondence to Uhtred:
To my esteemed son in law and friend. All of Europe has heard of your mighty struggle with your own blood and all would stand with you in this valorous endeavour if they could. As your kin through my beloved daughter, your wife, I have that opportunity so of course I will honour my obligation and answer your call to war. Let our enemies tremble.
Uhtred must have wondered whether he could indeed trust the word of his new ‘father in law’ but his Queen reassured him that her father was a man of his word and unlike the empty promises of support that had been offered by King Boson of Galicia and King Tomas of Croatia troops would soon arrive.
More bad news arrived in the same month when yet another of his nephews, Laurence Mac Ailpin, Macbeth of the Isles’ younger brother, threw his own hat into the ring and announced that he would support his cousin and sibling, raising another force of around two thousand in central south Scotland-it was another nail in a coffin that was fast being sealed shut. Nonetheless, despite the forces arrayed against him the King reckoned that all that was needed was to avoid battle at all costs and wait for a miracle. As it turned out, however, the rebel armies in Ireland and Scotland were too busy besieging the King’s holdings to turn their attention towards Wales.
3. The Ultimate Betrayal
The motivation for Uhtred’s hitherto loyal eldest son and heir to be drawn, in the new year of 1230, into the rebellion in support of his cousin’s claim for Ireland is an utter mystery to most commentators of this tumultuous period of Gaelic history. Did he, like others at this time, believe that the game was up or was the Prince playing a more devious game? Had he been too long away from his campaigning father such that he had become disconnected or had his cousin, Ewan of Munster, subtly subverted him over the years of revolt and rebellion? It seems odd that he would support such a claim because in doing so he was effectively disinheriting himself. Was there a pact that with the war won he could keep Scotland in preference to his other cousin Macbeth of the Isle’s claim? Others have even suggested that the Prince was so undone at the death of his mother that he would have agreed to anything at this time. Answers are not easy to come by especially given the undoubted fact that William had always supported his father and that relations between the two were always warm.
Whatever the answer it came as a dagger thrust to the heart of Uhtred to see all his struggles to preserve his dynasty come undone by the caprice of his ungrateful eldest.
Shakespeare captures perfectly the anguish of an old King in this excerpt from ‘King Uhtred’:
Uhtred: O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs this son's heart
Against his father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you lad
That all the world shall- I will do such things-
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth! You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Interestingly Uhtred made no move to disinherit William in favour of his younger brother, Prince Thomas, an indicator either of a father who refused to believe that his son had betrayed him or of a king who was past caring…
It must have been with huge relief, therefore, that word reached the Royal camp at Denbigh in June of 1230, that a massive Italian army had disembarked in Thomond. It was said to number more than ten thousand. This army was led by the puissant Latin Marshall Mayor Arnolfo Annibale and immediately tracked down and engaged the Duke of Connacht’s force numbering only half its number, comprehensively defeating it at the battle of Dunasead. No sooner had this happened than another similarly large force under Mayor Luigi Landorfo embarked further north in Thomond. This was the energy and fillip that Uhtred had been waiting for. Tomasina had been correct: his fellow liege Bonifacio, was a man of his word and had proved so with a massive show of strength-no less than twenty thousand Italian knights, men at arms and archers.
Uhtred tarried in Wales only long enough to pacify Perfeddwlad before marching his army north-he had already sent to the Italians with instructions to join him as soon as they could and with all haste. A letter survives to the Italian Marshalls:
To my right true puissant Lord Landorfo. Well met. The beneficence of your mighty master shall not go unnoticed in my stormy realms. I bid you now bend all your power to speed your way to meet me in Scotland proper-I head for my ancestral lands of Moray with my small force. Let us join there in this great enterprise to rid my Kingdoms, for once and all, of revolt and alarum.
Uhtred R*
In November 1230 Uhtred fell ill once again and was incapacitated for six months. Whilst he was ill he could do no more but be nursed back to health by his devoted young wife with the occasional report being delivered by his son Robert. The walls of the newly recaptured Chester Castle took on the guise of a jail to the restless King-we should remember that he was now 59 years old-a grand old age for a Mediaeval Lord let alone one who insisted on campaigning in person.
Reports tell us that Uhtred was back in the saddle by early summer 1231 and the royal army now appeared in the Highland province of Moray where it was joined by one of the Italian armies swelling its ranks to well over fifteen thousand troops. Facing them were the armies of Macbeth of the Isles numbering some eleven thousand and besieging Scone finally. To the south west in Atholl still tarried the ‘host’ of his brother Laurence Mac Ailpin though host is somewhat gilding the lily-this army of malcontents was no more than two thousand strong.
As was his wont Uhtred moved lightning fast trapping Macbeth’s powerful force before it could be joined and swelled by that of his brother. A fierce battle took place on the plain before the town of Scone and whether it was the skill of the professional Italian and Scots Royal forces or the adroitness of the generalship of Uhtred, his son Robert and Mayor Landorfo of Umbria, the rebels were thrown back in bloody disarray losing most of their men.
Marianus Scotus writes thus of the Battle of Scone which took place on the 12th July 1231:
Of remnants of the proud host of haughty Macbeth of the Isles there was little remaining. Townsfolk told of a flight that went on for fully half the day with great slaughter visited upon the fleeing Isles men. Some say that of his initial eleven thousand, the Duke escaped with barely a quarter of that number…
Within weeks Uhtred had brought Laurence to battle as well utterly annihilating that force and capturing his nephew and sending him packing to Scone for the harshest imprisonment and execution.
Thus by the first frosts of the year 1231, with two sizeable Italian armies ranging across Ireland in pursuit of rebel armies, with the Welsh cowed once more and with the main power in Scotland utterly defeated Uhtred could once more imagine that his family would survive. There were still significant small forces garrisoning captured castles and harrying his lands-it was a time of lawlessness where the king’s peace and his writ carried little currency. It would take Uhtred another two years to finally bring his realms to peace and finally cow his rebellious kin and restless lords. The effort was to be quite literally the death of him…
4. The Reckoning
There were three events that took place that many historians have dubbed the trinity of happenings that finally delivered Uhtred from his tormentors:
First his heir, Prince William of Meath, died of an illness in the new year of 1232. The king met the news with a frosty hauteur-if he grieved for his errant eldest child it has not shown up in any records. Ironically the laws that he himself had framed around succession now placed his twelve year old grandchild, Farquhar, as next in line to the throne. What was the relationship like between old king and young boy? It is hard to divine but one thing is not in doubt: Farquhar, the new Duke of Meath and heir to the crowns of Scotland and Ireland, carried on his father’s rebellion right where William had left off. It is important, however, to consider how minority rule worked in these times: Farquhar would effectively have no say in proceedings, his ducal prerogatives being exercised by a Regency Council that was led by the Earl of Ulster-himself one of the leading rebels in Ireland. Even if Farquhar had been minded to end his part in the revolt he would have had little choice in doing so.
Then in May 1232 Ewan of Meath finally capitulated and bent the knee to his uncle’s sovereignty. A roll call of leading Irish magnates were brought before the King’s grace in Belfast, their titles stripped from them and forced to pay a humiliating homage to Uhtred before being sent in chains to the overflowing prisons at Dublin Castle. Along with Ewan of Munster there were imprisoned Duke Farquhar the Unready of Leinster, Duke Malise the Fat of Connacht, Duke Roderick of Ulster. Ewan and Farquhar were stripped of their Duchies, Malise and Roderick were divested of their richest Earldoms of Northumberland and Ulster respectively. In addition Duchess Isabel of Cornwall and the thirteen year old heir Farquhar of Meath were similarly imprisoned but not stripped of their titles.
Robyn Young brilliantly captures the scene in ‘Insurrection’:
Belfast Castle May 26th 1233
The long day in the rather rustic setting of the fort that was Belfast Castle-not a mighty Norman stone Castle that existed in Wales and Scotland but earthworks centred around a great hall with wooden palisades bordering the whole. It was, Uhtred had mused to his son Thomas, like taking step back in time.
It had been necessary to mete out justice in Ireland, though, but The King had deemed the Royal Castle at Dublin to be too far from Scotland, where the rebellion still raged, so Belfast’s stronghold had to do. It was somewhat fitting, too, that this was the seat of Roderick Mac Malmure, Duke of Ulster-where better to show the proud Duke of a proud family that taking up arms against your own Sovereign went against the laws of God and the land?
And so flanked by his sons, Thomas to the left and Robert in his place as Chancellor to the right of the hastily erected dais and makeshift throne, Uhtred had forced the ringleaders of the Irish rebellion starting with his nephew Ewan, to bend the knee-grovel really and beg him for mercy or some quarter. All had been roughly handled by the Guards-just as Uhtred had willed it: there was a reckoning to pay for defiance. Malise the Fat’s bulk prevented him from doing anything more than stooping until his jailor shattered his pudgy knee with a kick that brought the bear-like Lord crashing down to the hard ground. His wails and screams were met with a frosty silence by Uhtred, his sons and those few Irish Lords, mainly those from Desmond, that had not rebelled.
As the shadows were lengthening there were brought in Lady Isabel and the thirteen year old heir to the throne Farquhar of Meath. The King surveyed them both for what seemed an age before speaking:
‘Our Lady of Cornwall and our Grandson-what are we to do with you?’
At this musing Isabel Dunbar started to pick herself up from the cold, hard floor. She was interrupted by the cold hard tones of a King who had been taken to the ends of his endurance, ‘We did not give you leave to rise Isabel Dunbar!’ To her right the young boy started to sob quietly. It might have been this that softened the old man’s heart for his next words were surprisingly conciliatory: ‘I do not make war on women and children unlike some of my forbears Farquhar of Meath. I would our bond was reconciled to how it was when you used to play on my knee at the palace at Scone. I think that it might be so someday eh child?’
The handsome boy looked up from his prostrate position face smeared with tears, his body shaking with sobs ‘yes grandfather-please. Sire.’
The plainly clothed young Duke’s pleading azure eyes met the flint grey ones of his grandsire and something clicked-something softened for the King. It was almost imperceptible but Prince Thomas, stood to his father’s side, noticed it and liked not what he saw. He, after all, had never rebelled against the King like his older brother had-why should his whelp still benefit?
At last the King spoke: ‘good. You will remain at my pleasure for a short while imprisoned. You will be held somewhere comfortable-rest assured. None of your titles or claim to my throne are forfeit-there will be no attainder here.’
There was a murmur all around the Great Hall at this and some disquiet. Thomas and Robert-the royal princes exchanged glances. It was Robert who spoke first-as Chancellor he was perfectly within his rights to add some counsel:
‘Sire is this wise? Mayhap you should consult with your Privy Council before making so momentous a decision? This is the son of your son who has repaid your lifelong efforts with-‘
‘There will be no discussion my Lord.’ Uhtred interrupted tersely, ‘this family has suffered enough and I have not spent the last seventeen years fundamentally changing the law of the land only to set that law aside in a trice because of some caprice. No sir I am satisfied of The Prince’s continued loyalty-he remains my heir.’
This didn’t seem to be enough, however, as Robert went to continue, ‘But father-‘
‘Enough Sirrah!’ Would you question your King?’ The old man blazed-in his dotage he might have been but in a moment he could remind all that here was a King who still had a fire in his belly, who was still campaigning with his armies, even if he no longer fought in the thickest press of battle.
The King continued his eyes flashing dangerously, ‘you would bandy words with your sire! Me who has faced down the disobedience of my barons and defeated them! Who has utterly altered the fabric of the relationship between they and my royal family. I who control lands from the Northern Isles to Chester, Derby and York, from Penzance to Cork. No my Lord Prince my word stands by Gods blood!’
The venting of spleen had the desired effect and now it was both his sons who knelt low before their father,
‘forgive us father-we did not mean to-‘
‘I am not interested in what you meant My Lord Chancellor-only, from now on, in what you do.’ The King turned from his sons to address the hall at large, ‘let what has happened here today stand as a lesson for all-we are not likely to be doubly merciful. All who disobey our royal will shall incur the full force of God’s justice!’
He rose at that and turned to leave, pausing only to address the still prostrate Duchess of Cornwall ‘Isabel Dunbar you have good leave to leave us as soon as you have paid a suitable stipend for your disobedience. Good day my lords and ladies.’ And with that the old king, still regal, still imposing and above all still able to strike fear into the hearts of all around him, departed the Great Hall.
Scotland and Duke Macbeth’s fight for the crown there was to drag on for a further year but the odds had been stacked against that proud Baron for some time now. The king himself accepted his final surrender at Stornoway in the Isles-it is said that Macbeth was kept waiting prostrate on the ground for fully an hour before Uhtred appeared. His fate was to be packed off to the oubliette at Scone-the guards would lock him up and literally throw away the key. In Mediaeval times prisoners were not expected to be seen again if such was their fate.
Again there was a severe reckoning to be paid by the other rebellious Scottish Lords. At the head of these was Isabel Dunbar, Duchess of Cornwall, who had bought her own freedom the year previous and then precipitously answered Macbeth’s desperate summons for assistance-a last gasp maybe? Or did she just reckon that Uhtred would never really forgive and forget? Whatever the answer, she was stripped of her Duchy and packed off to join Macbeth at the Oubliette in Scone-a particularly harsh punishment for a woman and one which she did not survive. Others to feel the king’s wrath were Duke Thomas of Galloway-imprisoned; Duchess Mor of Lothian-imprisoned; Duke Birgin the Cruel-imprisoned; Duke Gilbride of Gwynedd-imprisoned. And of titles, the King stripped Gilbride of his Earldom of Gwynedd passing it to his cousin Archibald. The mighty Duchy of Cornwall went to his stalwart adherents throughout all of this, the Mac Ragnaill clan-Adam. That Clan Chieftain’s brother, Malcolm Mac Ragnaill, was made Earl of Lothian-the title stripped from Duchess Mor. To his own brother, Radulf, went the Earldom of Gwent and to his loyal sons Thomas and Robert went the powerful Irish Duchies of Munster and Leinster respectively.
In all of this there had been not so much a subtle but seismic shift of old allegiances and power. By challenging his authority so nakedly the Lords of Scotland, Wales and Ireland had shown their hand and lost. The victor, the old King, was now free to apportion the spoils as he saw fit, promoting a trusted inner circle of advisors to the highest positions in the land and keeping the rebels in prison or stripped of titles and possessions. In the autumn of 1234 Uhtred’s victory was total.
So when, in October 1234, the king at last ordered his grandson freed from detention he might have thought that through all this struggle he would now be free to see out his last years in relative peace. But a look in his son, Robert’s eyes must have given him pause for he actually called for a ceremony of succession to be carried out at Scone, whereby all his loyal lords and ladies were summonsed to swear continuing fealty to him and swear also, by the sacred Stone of Destiny, that they would support Farquhar’s claim as hereditary successor.
It is most telling that Marianus Scotus writes:
And of all the puissant lords that were sworn, first amongst them came the king’s two sons whose visages and countenances harboured such storms as could not be hidden from the greatest to the least of all assembled…
Whatever their dispositions, though, all did recognise that his mighty struggles with his barons, his law-making, his feats in arms and his enlargement of the Greater Scottish realm placed him amongst the highest esteemed of all Celtic monarchs such that a cry went up from all alike hailing Uhtred and all his works as truly magnificent…
5. Afterword
There are some letters and records that indicate that the king and his grandson became once more fond of each other-the young Duke spent many weeks in Uhtred’s company at Scone as the old man was now too frail for long journeys. He had hand picked Farquhar’s guardian, none other than the Earl of Lothian, Malcolm Mac Ragnaill-the King’s true man. Uhtred might have wanted to last until the young man reached his majority but the fates were to deem it otherwise and even as he celebrated the fertility of his young wife who was bearing him another child (his first child by her was now a lively four year old-James) the king took ill of an autumn chill. He took to his bed that August and was not to recover. Uhtred the First of the name, called the Magnificent for all his manifest achievements: crusader, king, law-giver, hammer of rebels, died peacefully on the 27th August in the year of our lord 1235. He had passed sixty four summers.
He left a fourteen-year-old boy as king….
1222-1234
Paul Murray Kendall (1972)
2. The Nephew’s Revolt
Because the casus belli had been removed namely the Pretender Adam de Gowrie, a helpless Uhtred was powerless to discipline his errant Lords. It could not be done without incurring the wrath of the rest of his fractious magnates anyway-whether he could have envisaged the hornets nest of resentment that his change to the succession laws would garner cannot be determined but he was truly reaping the whirlwind. So between 1226 and 1227 a febrile year passed with the ageing monarch seemingly ignorant of or unable to do anything about the threat brewing right beneath his nose. All the intelligence told the king that the next challenge was without, one of any number of disaffected Dukes, when in actual fact it was being stoked from within.
In the summer of 1227 the King decided to bide the warmer months in Wales-he felt that he had for too long neglected this territory which, whilst technically a part of Scotland still saw itself as a separate realm with its own customs and fierce traditions. As was his wont the King travelled with a small army, his personal retinue now numbering some 5000 highly trained heavy infantry, cavalry both light and heavy and the feared Schiltrom pikemen.
Maybe it was serendipity but the monarch was still en route when word reached him of another major uprising. Once more it was not confined to any one of his three Kingdoms but all three: Wales, Ireland and Scotland had once more risen in revolt against their liege. Early intelligence indicated that two of his nephews led the rebellion: Duke Ewan II of Munster, the brother of his erstwhile spymaster and 2nd son of his deceased brother Roderick who led an army of three thousand in Wales whilst his vassals in Ireland mustered a further five thousand. He claimed the throne of Ireland. Meanwhile the eldest son of his late brother Andrew, Duke Macbeth of the Isles had summonsed most of Scotland to his banners and mustered an army of no fewer than ten thousand declaring righteously that Uhtred was a tyrant and that Mac Ailpin rule would be better served with him as King of Scots. Within weeks the rebel Dukes had called most of the nobility of Scotland and Ireland to their sides-only the King’s own lands, vassals and those of his sons remained loyal. It was the most serious challenge to his authority yet and one that, like Adam De Gowrie’s uprising, threatened to forcibly remove Uhtred’s scion from the monarchy forever.
The march south through enemy held Yorkshire and Cheshire must have been fraught but if the old King was fearful he did not show it instead commending his Lords for the excellent bearing and training of the Royal Army.
‘If there are ten thousand thousand of the ilk of Munster and Macbeth then let them come aye!’ He is said to have exclaimed to his down-at-heel sons. As usual he travelled with Thomas and Robert whilst his heir, William, was left in Scone to supervise the town’s defence. Whether he truly believed his own bravado we will never know but all contemporary reports speak of a King seemingly confident for the challenges ahead…
Except there was no way that Uhtred could win this war. He was faced with eighteen thousand rebels and he only had the Royal Army of one-third that number. And though at Rhyll he comprehensively defeated the main rebel force in Wales he must have known that the odds were not in his favour.
I have chosen Robyn Young’s superbly researched novel ‘Insurrection’ to bring to life the drama of the time:
12th August 1228
The King’s Camp besieging the Castle of Denbigh
‘Let me through! I seek the King!’ The Herald shouted barrelling his way past the unruly throng that prevented him from taking a clear path to the Monarch’s Pavilion. An eagle eyed guard spotted the cognizance of Meath on his tabard and realising that it could only mean a missive from the Duke, the King’s son from Scone, he shouldered his way towards him.
‘Let the man through! Out of the way Sirs!’ This in rough Scots and using his own not inconsiderable bulk and his pike he helped expedite a route to the Pavilion entrance.
‘Thank you sir’ was all the messenger could mouth before being pushed roughly inside. Within the spacious tent another guard appraised him coolly before asking his business. The messenger thrust his scroll with its recognisable seal into the other man’s face: it had the desired effect.
‘Sire a messenger from your son the Duke of Meath!’ This to an inner tent that was covered from view by muslin curtains.
‘Let him come.’ The dialogue was the lilting Scots tongue. Taking his cue the Herald approached the parting, kneeling low at the sound of rustling bed sheets. Presently the King appeared, still in his bedclothes-he looked frail and gaunt, only recently having recovered from another particularly severe bout of camp fever.
‘My Liege-mayhap you should also summon your-‘ But a commotion without told him that Prince Robert, the King’s trusty warrior son and Chancellor, had just appeared and approaching quietly from behind he snatched the scroll from the Herald’s hands.
‘Sire I have ill tidings.’ The Emissary had switched to Latin through force of habit-it was the tongue of the nobility after all.
But Prince Robert was not in a mood for dissembling ‘Father it’s mama…she-she has died.’ His face was sad as he scanned the hastily written note from his elder brother. ‘She was frail, took ill and died. Father I am sorry.’
The King had remained silent all the while and the Herald could not see his face, kneeling low as he was but he could hear the sobbing of a sick old man as he was roughly hauled to his feet and propelled from the Pavilion: a King’s grief was not for public consumption…
Queen Deirdre had died from natural causes, the term of her deterioration being no longer than a few weeks. It is said that the King was beside himself with grief. Whether this is actually true has been debated by historians through the centuries -there is no evidence in any of the records that indicate that this was a love match-something very rare in Mediaeval times. What is not in doubt is the marriage offer that was made one year later to the powerful monarch King Bonifacio of Italy for the hand of his youngest daughter, the fifteen-year-old Principessa Tomasina. It was to be a fateful marriage. Why it should be debated is somewhat spurious: one year was plenty of time to grieve. To ally himself to one of the great powers of Europe was common sense. Uhtred had remained in Wales with his small force praying against all hope that the large rebel army to their north would remain there for the time being. If his enemies in Ireland or Scotland moved down to take him on then he knew and so did everyone associated with him, that he would be utterly destroyed. It must have been with something of a sense of deja-vu that Uhtred assessed his position in the spring and summer of 1229: outnumbered, beset on all sides by rebel magnates this time led by blood kin and followed only by his own Royal retainers, his own vassals and his two younger sons. Was there a plan? It is hard to say-maybe Uhtred believed that God would intervene: it had happened before, after all, when Adam de Gowrie had suddenly died in 1225-why not again now? If there was a design, however, beyond fervent prayers to the almighty none have recorded it.
The young new Queen of Scots and Ireland did not head for Scone, which was threatened by rebels, but made straight for the King’s lodging at Denbigh castle in North Wales. She was already proving no winsome wallflower but a young girl of mettle and if any thought it a scandal that such an old man should be wed to such a young girl, not yet in her majority, then none showed it. The Queen arrived in June 1229, she turned sixteen a couple of months later-she was pregnant by August 1230.
More significantly however was what her father did in December 1229. There is no doubt from all contemporary sources that the King of Italy doted on his youngest child and to that end was quick to offer Italian arms to support Uhtred in his war effort-after all if Uhtred failed then things would not be good for his daughter. At that time the Scots King was one of the most highly regarded monarchs in Europe-to help would be an honour and a privilege: here is a contemporary translation from Latin of his correspondence to Uhtred:
To my esteemed son in law and friend. All of Europe has heard of your mighty struggle with your own blood and all would stand with you in this valorous endeavour if they could. As your kin through my beloved daughter, your wife, I have that opportunity so of course I will honour my obligation and answer your call to war. Let our enemies tremble.
Uhtred must have wondered whether he could indeed trust the word of his new ‘father in law’ but his Queen reassured him that her father was a man of his word and unlike the empty promises of support that had been offered by King Boson of Galicia and King Tomas of Croatia troops would soon arrive.
More bad news arrived in the same month when yet another of his nephews, Laurence Mac Ailpin, Macbeth of the Isles’ younger brother, threw his own hat into the ring and announced that he would support his cousin and sibling, raising another force of around two thousand in central south Scotland-it was another nail in a coffin that was fast being sealed shut. Nonetheless, despite the forces arrayed against him the King reckoned that all that was needed was to avoid battle at all costs and wait for a miracle. As it turned out, however, the rebel armies in Ireland and Scotland were too busy besieging the King’s holdings to turn their attention towards Wales.
3. The Ultimate Betrayal
The motivation for Uhtred’s hitherto loyal eldest son and heir to be drawn, in the new year of 1230, into the rebellion in support of his cousin’s claim for Ireland is an utter mystery to most commentators of this tumultuous period of Gaelic history. Did he, like others at this time, believe that the game was up or was the Prince playing a more devious game? Had he been too long away from his campaigning father such that he had become disconnected or had his cousin, Ewan of Munster, subtly subverted him over the years of revolt and rebellion? It seems odd that he would support such a claim because in doing so he was effectively disinheriting himself. Was there a pact that with the war won he could keep Scotland in preference to his other cousin Macbeth of the Isle’s claim? Others have even suggested that the Prince was so undone at the death of his mother that he would have agreed to anything at this time. Answers are not easy to come by especially given the undoubted fact that William had always supported his father and that relations between the two were always warm.
Uhtred and his son Prince Robert Mac Ailpin by Thomas St Leger
Whatever the answer it came as a dagger thrust to the heart of Uhtred to see all his struggles to preserve his dynasty come undone by the caprice of his ungrateful eldest.
Shakespeare captures perfectly the anguish of an old King in this excerpt from ‘King Uhtred’:
Uhtred: O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
If it be you that stirs this son's heart
Against his father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women's weapons, water drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags!
I will have such revenges on you lad
That all the world shall- I will do such things-
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth! You think I'll weep.
No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
Interestingly Uhtred made no move to disinherit William in favour of his younger brother, Prince Thomas, an indicator either of a father who refused to believe that his son had betrayed him or of a king who was past caring…
It must have been with huge relief, therefore, that word reached the Royal camp at Denbigh in June of 1230, that a massive Italian army had disembarked in Thomond. It was said to number more than ten thousand. This army was led by the puissant Latin Marshall Mayor Arnolfo Annibale and immediately tracked down and engaged the Duke of Connacht’s force numbering only half its number, comprehensively defeating it at the battle of Dunasead. No sooner had this happened than another similarly large force under Mayor Luigi Landorfo embarked further north in Thomond. This was the energy and fillip that Uhtred had been waiting for. Tomasina had been correct: his fellow liege Bonifacio, was a man of his word and had proved so with a massive show of strength-no less than twenty thousand Italian knights, men at arms and archers.
Uhtred tarried in Wales only long enough to pacify Perfeddwlad before marching his army north-he had already sent to the Italians with instructions to join him as soon as they could and with all haste. A letter survives to the Italian Marshalls:
To my right true puissant Lord Landorfo. Well met. The beneficence of your mighty master shall not go unnoticed in my stormy realms. I bid you now bend all your power to speed your way to meet me in Scotland proper-I head for my ancestral lands of Moray with my small force. Let us join there in this great enterprise to rid my Kingdoms, for once and all, of revolt and alarum.
Uhtred R*
In November 1230 Uhtred fell ill once again and was incapacitated for six months. Whilst he was ill he could do no more but be nursed back to health by his devoted young wife with the occasional report being delivered by his son Robert. The walls of the newly recaptured Chester Castle took on the guise of a jail to the restless King-we should remember that he was now 59 years old-a grand old age for a Mediaeval Lord let alone one who insisted on campaigning in person.
Reports tell us that Uhtred was back in the saddle by early summer 1231 and the royal army now appeared in the Highland province of Moray where it was joined by one of the Italian armies swelling its ranks to well over fifteen thousand troops. Facing them were the armies of Macbeth of the Isles numbering some eleven thousand and besieging Scone finally. To the south west in Atholl still tarried the ‘host’ of his brother Laurence Mac Ailpin though host is somewhat gilding the lily-this army of malcontents was no more than two thousand strong.
As was his wont Uhtred moved lightning fast trapping Macbeth’s powerful force before it could be joined and swelled by that of his brother. A fierce battle took place on the plain before the town of Scone and whether it was the skill of the professional Italian and Scots Royal forces or the adroitness of the generalship of Uhtred, his son Robert and Mayor Landorfo of Umbria, the rebels were thrown back in bloody disarray losing most of their men.
Marianus Scotus writes thus of the Battle of Scone which took place on the 12th July 1231:
Of remnants of the proud host of haughty Macbeth of the Isles there was little remaining. Townsfolk told of a flight that went on for fully half the day with great slaughter visited upon the fleeing Isles men. Some say that of his initial eleven thousand, the Duke escaped with barely a quarter of that number…
Within weeks Uhtred had brought Laurence to battle as well utterly annihilating that force and capturing his nephew and sending him packing to Scone for the harshest imprisonment and execution.
Thus by the first frosts of the year 1231, with two sizeable Italian armies ranging across Ireland in pursuit of rebel armies, with the Welsh cowed once more and with the main power in Scotland utterly defeated Uhtred could once more imagine that his family would survive. There were still significant small forces garrisoning captured castles and harrying his lands-it was a time of lawlessness where the king’s peace and his writ carried little currency. It would take Uhtred another two years to finally bring his realms to peace and finally cow his rebellious kin and restless lords. The effort was to be quite literally the death of him…
4. The Reckoning
There were three events that took place that many historians have dubbed the trinity of happenings that finally delivered Uhtred from his tormentors:
First his heir, Prince William of Meath, died of an illness in the new year of 1232. The king met the news with a frosty hauteur-if he grieved for his errant eldest child it has not shown up in any records. Ironically the laws that he himself had framed around succession now placed his twelve year old grandchild, Farquhar, as next in line to the throne. What was the relationship like between old king and young boy? It is hard to divine but one thing is not in doubt: Farquhar, the new Duke of Meath and heir to the crowns of Scotland and Ireland, carried on his father’s rebellion right where William had left off. It is important, however, to consider how minority rule worked in these times: Farquhar would effectively have no say in proceedings, his ducal prerogatives being exercised by a Regency Council that was led by the Earl of Ulster-himself one of the leading rebels in Ireland. Even if Farquhar had been minded to end his part in the revolt he would have had little choice in doing so.
Then in May 1232 Ewan of Meath finally capitulated and bent the knee to his uncle’s sovereignty. A roll call of leading Irish magnates were brought before the King’s grace in Belfast, their titles stripped from them and forced to pay a humiliating homage to Uhtred before being sent in chains to the overflowing prisons at Dublin Castle. Along with Ewan of Munster there were imprisoned Duke Farquhar the Unready of Leinster, Duke Malise the Fat of Connacht, Duke Roderick of Ulster. Ewan and Farquhar were stripped of their Duchies, Malise and Roderick were divested of their richest Earldoms of Northumberland and Ulster respectively. In addition Duchess Isabel of Cornwall and the thirteen year old heir Farquhar of Meath were similarly imprisoned but not stripped of their titles.
Robyn Young brilliantly captures the scene in ‘Insurrection’:
Belfast Castle May 26th 1233
The long day in the rather rustic setting of the fort that was Belfast Castle-not a mighty Norman stone Castle that existed in Wales and Scotland but earthworks centred around a great hall with wooden palisades bordering the whole. It was, Uhtred had mused to his son Thomas, like taking step back in time.
It had been necessary to mete out justice in Ireland, though, but The King had deemed the Royal Castle at Dublin to be too far from Scotland, where the rebellion still raged, so Belfast’s stronghold had to do. It was somewhat fitting, too, that this was the seat of Roderick Mac Malmure, Duke of Ulster-where better to show the proud Duke of a proud family that taking up arms against your own Sovereign went against the laws of God and the land?
And so flanked by his sons, Thomas to the left and Robert in his place as Chancellor to the right of the hastily erected dais and makeshift throne, Uhtred had forced the ringleaders of the Irish rebellion starting with his nephew Ewan, to bend the knee-grovel really and beg him for mercy or some quarter. All had been roughly handled by the Guards-just as Uhtred had willed it: there was a reckoning to pay for defiance. Malise the Fat’s bulk prevented him from doing anything more than stooping until his jailor shattered his pudgy knee with a kick that brought the bear-like Lord crashing down to the hard ground. His wails and screams were met with a frosty silence by Uhtred, his sons and those few Irish Lords, mainly those from Desmond, that had not rebelled.
As the shadows were lengthening there were brought in Lady Isabel and the thirteen year old heir to the throne Farquhar of Meath. The King surveyed them both for what seemed an age before speaking:
‘Our Lady of Cornwall and our Grandson-what are we to do with you?’
At this musing Isabel Dunbar started to pick herself up from the cold, hard floor. She was interrupted by the cold hard tones of a King who had been taken to the ends of his endurance, ‘We did not give you leave to rise Isabel Dunbar!’ To her right the young boy started to sob quietly. It might have been this that softened the old man’s heart for his next words were surprisingly conciliatory: ‘I do not make war on women and children unlike some of my forbears Farquhar of Meath. I would our bond was reconciled to how it was when you used to play on my knee at the palace at Scone. I think that it might be so someday eh child?’
The handsome boy looked up from his prostrate position face smeared with tears, his body shaking with sobs ‘yes grandfather-please. Sire.’
The plainly clothed young Duke’s pleading azure eyes met the flint grey ones of his grandsire and something clicked-something softened for the King. It was almost imperceptible but Prince Thomas, stood to his father’s side, noticed it and liked not what he saw. He, after all, had never rebelled against the King like his older brother had-why should his whelp still benefit?
At last the King spoke: ‘good. You will remain at my pleasure for a short while imprisoned. You will be held somewhere comfortable-rest assured. None of your titles or claim to my throne are forfeit-there will be no attainder here.’
There was a murmur all around the Great Hall at this and some disquiet. Thomas and Robert-the royal princes exchanged glances. It was Robert who spoke first-as Chancellor he was perfectly within his rights to add some counsel:
‘Sire is this wise? Mayhap you should consult with your Privy Council before making so momentous a decision? This is the son of your son who has repaid your lifelong efforts with-‘
‘There will be no discussion my Lord.’ Uhtred interrupted tersely, ‘this family has suffered enough and I have not spent the last seventeen years fundamentally changing the law of the land only to set that law aside in a trice because of some caprice. No sir I am satisfied of The Prince’s continued loyalty-he remains my heir.’
This didn’t seem to be enough, however, as Robert went to continue, ‘But father-‘
‘Enough Sirrah!’ Would you question your King?’ The old man blazed-in his dotage he might have been but in a moment he could remind all that here was a King who still had a fire in his belly, who was still campaigning with his armies, even if he no longer fought in the thickest press of battle.
The King continued his eyes flashing dangerously, ‘you would bandy words with your sire! Me who has faced down the disobedience of my barons and defeated them! Who has utterly altered the fabric of the relationship between they and my royal family. I who control lands from the Northern Isles to Chester, Derby and York, from Penzance to Cork. No my Lord Prince my word stands by Gods blood!’
The venting of spleen had the desired effect and now it was both his sons who knelt low before their father,
‘forgive us father-we did not mean to-‘
‘I am not interested in what you meant My Lord Chancellor-only, from now on, in what you do.’ The King turned from his sons to address the hall at large, ‘let what has happened here today stand as a lesson for all-we are not likely to be doubly merciful. All who disobey our royal will shall incur the full force of God’s justice!’
He rose at that and turned to leave, pausing only to address the still prostrate Duchess of Cornwall ‘Isabel Dunbar you have good leave to leave us as soon as you have paid a suitable stipend for your disobedience. Good day my lords and ladies.’ And with that the old king, still regal, still imposing and above all still able to strike fear into the hearts of all around him, departed the Great Hall.
Scotland and Duke Macbeth’s fight for the crown there was to drag on for a further year but the odds had been stacked against that proud Baron for some time now. The king himself accepted his final surrender at Stornoway in the Isles-it is said that Macbeth was kept waiting prostrate on the ground for fully an hour before Uhtred appeared. His fate was to be packed off to the oubliette at Scone-the guards would lock him up and literally throw away the key. In Mediaeval times prisoners were not expected to be seen again if such was their fate.
Scone Oubliette Present Day
Again there was a severe reckoning to be paid by the other rebellious Scottish Lords. At the head of these was Isabel Dunbar, Duchess of Cornwall, who had bought her own freedom the year previous and then precipitously answered Macbeth’s desperate summons for assistance-a last gasp maybe? Or did she just reckon that Uhtred would never really forgive and forget? Whatever the answer, she was stripped of her Duchy and packed off to join Macbeth at the Oubliette in Scone-a particularly harsh punishment for a woman and one which she did not survive. Others to feel the king’s wrath were Duke Thomas of Galloway-imprisoned; Duchess Mor of Lothian-imprisoned; Duke Birgin the Cruel-imprisoned; Duke Gilbride of Gwynedd-imprisoned. And of titles, the King stripped Gilbride of his Earldom of Gwynedd passing it to his cousin Archibald. The mighty Duchy of Cornwall went to his stalwart adherents throughout all of this, the Mac Ragnaill clan-Adam. That Clan Chieftain’s brother, Malcolm Mac Ragnaill, was made Earl of Lothian-the title stripped from Duchess Mor. To his own brother, Radulf, went the Earldom of Gwent and to his loyal sons Thomas and Robert went the powerful Irish Duchies of Munster and Leinster respectively.
In all of this there had been not so much a subtle but seismic shift of old allegiances and power. By challenging his authority so nakedly the Lords of Scotland, Wales and Ireland had shown their hand and lost. The victor, the old King, was now free to apportion the spoils as he saw fit, promoting a trusted inner circle of advisors to the highest positions in the land and keeping the rebels in prison or stripped of titles and possessions. In the autumn of 1234 Uhtred’s victory was total.
So when, in October 1234, the king at last ordered his grandson freed from detention he might have thought that through all this struggle he would now be free to see out his last years in relative peace. But a look in his son, Robert’s eyes must have given him pause for he actually called for a ceremony of succession to be carried out at Scone, whereby all his loyal lords and ladies were summonsed to swear continuing fealty to him and swear also, by the sacred Stone of Destiny, that they would support Farquhar’s claim as hereditary successor.
It is most telling that Marianus Scotus writes:
And of all the puissant lords that were sworn, first amongst them came the king’s two sons whose visages and countenances harboured such storms as could not be hidden from the greatest to the least of all assembled…
Whatever their dispositions, though, all did recognise that his mighty struggles with his barons, his law-making, his feats in arms and his enlargement of the Greater Scottish realm placed him amongst the highest esteemed of all Celtic monarchs such that a cry went up from all alike hailing Uhtred and all his works as truly magnificent…
5. Afterword
There are some letters and records that indicate that the king and his grandson became once more fond of each other-the young Duke spent many weeks in Uhtred’s company at Scone as the old man was now too frail for long journeys. He had hand picked Farquhar’s guardian, none other than the Earl of Lothian, Malcolm Mac Ragnaill-the King’s true man. Uhtred might have wanted to last until the young man reached his majority but the fates were to deem it otherwise and even as he celebrated the fertility of his young wife who was bearing him another child (his first child by her was now a lively four year old-James) the king took ill of an autumn chill. He took to his bed that August and was not to recover. Uhtred the First of the name, called the Magnificent for all his manifest achievements: crusader, king, law-giver, hammer of rebels, died peacefully on the 27th August in the year of our lord 1235. He had passed sixty four summers.
He left a fourteen-year-old boy as king….
And the family blood bath begins again.
Dumb question: How does the Pretender to [Your Title] opinion malus work? I have noticed that in most of my games my uncles/brothers tend to have low-but-positive opinions of me on succession partially because they don't have this malus immediately. Some of them do get it later, but it doesn't seem to be related to the Content or Ambitious traits. Is it like EUIV where negative relations triggers the Wants Your Provinces modifier or am I missing something?
Dumb question: How does the Pretender to [Your Title] opinion malus work? I have noticed that in most of my games my uncles/brothers tend to have low-but-positive opinions of me on succession partially because they don't have this malus immediately. Some of them do get it later, but it doesn't seem to be related to the Content or Ambitious traits. Is it like EUIV where negative relations triggers the Wants Your Provinces modifier or am I missing something?
That's a really good question Warlord? What I do know is that the pretender malus was in full effect as Farquhar acceded. I kind of understand given that his father was effectively a traitor. Technically I'm wondering if I shouldn't have disinherited the lad. I'm wondering if I would have gotten away with it...
Siempie it will be. Scotland seems to have turned into England since I brought Primogeniture in I.e. Endless family wars over succession. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have stuck with elective...
Siempie it will be. Scotland seems to have turned into England since I brought Primogeniture in I.e. Endless family wars over succession. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have stuck with elective...
Yeah but I didn't like Tanistry as you could have very distant relatives suddenly foisted on you. What I do like about primo is you keep it in the immediate family so to speak. When you invest so much time and effort cultivating heirs etc it's really galling to suddenly have your lords decide they want someone else as heir. That's why I decided to do away with elective
I tend to go for primo and not land my sons, only their sons. But... That's a tad gamey.
Yeah I'm trying to play the game as I'd imagine the Kings would have I.e. When Uhtred realised the Dukes were not falling behind his son he did what any father and king would've: he changed the laws haha
Makes for more interesting stories anyhow
Whew. What a ride!
My many apologies to you, Asantahene, for having taken so long to finish your AAR to this point, but I stand duly punished, not having read these excellent top-of-your-game civil war chapters until now! Magnificent work!
I do somewhat miss a bit the earlier narrative form (which, as you can probably tell, I have a certain weakness for), but your supplementing it with fiction-in-fiction excerpts more than makes up the balance. And you've got your fictional Shakespeare plays ringing truer to life now; you've got the iambic pentametre down quite nicely, with a nice flair for rhythmic variation. And you completely nailed the tone and word-choice of the kingly lament a la King Lear and King John (and, am I mistaken, or do I detect a note of Henry VI, Part 1 in there as well?). Very well done indeed.
Looks like little Farquhar's gonna have a tough row to hoe with those two uncles of his - seasoned warriors both and with a legitimate grievance against the king. Personally, I'm looking forward to more betrayal, fratricide, blood and death. I second siempie78's eloquent sentiment: dizgunbefuuuuuuun.
My many apologies to you, Asantahene, for having taken so long to finish your AAR to this point, but I stand duly punished, not having read these excellent top-of-your-game civil war chapters until now! Magnificent work!
I do somewhat miss a bit the earlier narrative form (which, as you can probably tell, I have a certain weakness for), but your supplementing it with fiction-in-fiction excerpts more than makes up the balance. And you've got your fictional Shakespeare plays ringing truer to life now; you've got the iambic pentametre down quite nicely, with a nice flair for rhythmic variation. And you completely nailed the tone and word-choice of the kingly lament a la King Lear and King John (and, am I mistaken, or do I detect a note of Henry VI, Part 1 in there as well?). Very well done indeed.
Looks like little Farquhar's gonna have a tough row to hoe with those two uncles of his - seasoned warriors both and with a legitimate grievance against the king. Personally, I'm looking forward to more betrayal, fratricide, blood and death. I second siempie78's eloquent sentiment: dizgunbefuuuuuuun.
Revan I can think of no better writer to add such depth of comment than yourself. To me you're the best and most consistent writer on here so many thanks.
I've kinda had a couple of wobbles when writing this wondering if anyone's still reading but do you know what? I'm enjoying it so much that I'd probably finish it anyway
I hear what you say about narrative style. I'm going back to it for next few updates as it's probably where I'm at my strongest. I just like to mix it up a bit every now and then as much to keep me going as anything else haha
I will definitely be writing this weekend so expect an update soon.
Many thanks again. Your feedback and comments mean a helluva lot
I've kinda had a couple of wobbles when writing this wondering if anyone's still reading but do you know what? I'm enjoying it so much that I'd probably finish it anyway
I hear what you say about narrative style. I'm going back to it for next few updates as it's probably where I'm at my strongest. I just like to mix it up a bit every now and then as much to keep me going as anything else haha
I will definitely be writing this weekend so expect an update soon.
Many thanks again. Your feedback and comments mean a helluva lot
13th January 1236
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
It was as well that castles built in the Norman way by the English and more latterly the Scots were sturdy affairs, thought Robert of Leinster as he took up station by the warming hearth on this most chill of evenings. The barren fens of Northumberland were inhospitable at the best of times let alone in a most frigid and cheerless mid winter. He was hoping that his younger brother Thomas could provide him more heart-warming fare-for of that from the Capital there was none.
‘Forced off the Council brother! That was an unspeakable outrage!’ The younger Prince spluttered forcing a tankard of warm mulled ale to his lips, his beard bristling with pent up fury. ‘Who was responsible for this think you? I will wager that it was that hellspawn Mac Ragnaill-he has always misliked us!’
‘Which one?’ Robert replied with a tight smile stopping his brother short, ‘they multiply like flies since our father’s favour fell on them. As it happens my place has been taken by our good, true friend Adam of Cornwall…’
‘I knew it!’ Exploded Thomas, ‘the whoresons have always resented us for our closeness to the crown! Now they have three on the Council alone, guiding our new King!’ This last was spat out with a fiery intensity. The Duke of Munster and Earl of Northumberland had none of his elder brother’s guile, cunning or martial ability but one thing he was, and had always been, was utterly loyal to his immediate kin.
For his part Robert could only nod mutely with a weary resignation. He had always known that it would come to this if their father died whilst the boy was still in his minority-and so it had come to pass. Their father was scarce in the grave when peremptory word reached him from the Council’s mouthpiece and Chaplain, Bishop Gilchrist of Dunkeld, that the young King thanked him for his years of loyal service but a new order was now in place at the king’s pleasure and he was to be replaced forthwith. ‘The wily Bishop’ they called him in some ecclesiastical circles-the man’s intelligence was not in doubt. All Robert had done was throw the piece of vellum that confirmed his removal at the prelate’s feet and curtly told him to get out of his chambers.
He had had plenty of time to ponder this new turn of fortune’s wheel as he both mourned his beloved father and licked his wounds on his verdant estates in Ulster. The vicissitudes of fate that determined that the crown was to pass to his traitorous brother’s son rather than to him was too galling to bear-oh for the ancient Celtic laws of Tanistry! As the autumn leaves turned brown and the trees became bare and the first chills of the gathering winter approached Robert stopped feeling sorry for himself and began to harden his heart. How could this situation be turned to his advantage? One thing was for sure he was a hero in a large number of Scots and Irish hearts, having fought loyally by his father’s side for so many years. He had not turned his back on ‘The Magnificent’ like his brother had so surely, most reasoned, this puissant paladin-Earl of Ulster and Baron Dunluce-the Duke of Leinster no less, should be next in line and therefore the new king?
And as word reached him from his spies at court how Farquhar’s advisors had arranged a sterling betrothal to Irmele, the youngest of the Karling princesses in East Francia, Robert knew that they had to act before the boy became a man-he was already fourteen-no stripling and wise beyond his years if accounts were to be believed.
It had not been difficult to persuade his Greek wife that they should spend their Christmas court at his brother’s castle of Bamburgh on his sprawling Northumberland estates. The two families were close, his wife Adrianne related to his brother’s Evanthia, both having a shared culture and experience of being brought up in the messy politics of the Byzantine court. His daughters, Dervorgilla and Lorna were also close to his twin nieces and both had squealed with delight when Robert announced, one morning, that this was his intent.
The dark and dusky eyes of his paramour had appraised her husband intently, her interest and curiosity piqued by his studied nonchalance and it was only after shooing the girls away to their needlework classes that she had taken him by the chin and said, ‘but it is not to while away yuletide with your kin that you really want to go to Northumberland is it my love? I smell a plot brewing.’
Robert had shifted uncomfortably in his settle. She was too damned good at eking out subterfuge wherever it might lurk-was why he had asked her to be his spymaster in Leinster. He had told her, of course-they had few secrets but he swore her to silence. At this stage he wanted only his brother to know what he was planning.
And so some weeks later here he was in what was once mighty England, stirring the pot. If his brother were to join him in this venture then he would need to do so of his own free will…with a push of course. The ladies had retired to their quarters, their daughters long in bed and most of the castle’s inhabitants similarly asleep. Just he, his brother, a flagon of strong mulled ale (he’d not had to do much persuading of the kitchen cook to make it twice as strong as normal-a carelessly tossed silver crown saw to that…) and a litany of resentments.
‘Why could our esteemed father not see what everyone else could brother? That rebels whelp should succeed to the Stone of Destiny when it should have been yours. There is no justice in this land…’
‘Indeed Thomas and it is only like to get worse when the “whelp” as you call him reaches his majority.’
Munster looked up, his eyes red, ‘why brother? Worse-how so?’
‘Think on it Thomas. The King loves us not-we disputed his claim to the throne from the start. Now every day that he is in the grip of the Mac Ragnaill’s they will be poisoning his mind against us…’ Robert sighed exaggeratedly, ‘today it is my council seat, tomorrow who knows?’
Thomas’s eyes widened in shock ‘they would not dare! You are a hero to these realms-all know it! And the most loyal son our father could have had. None would imperil that surely?’
Robert sank back in his chair, shoulders slumping, ‘it is not our young king that I fear-rather the nest of vipers that he has surrounded himself with. You think that scheming mother of his will stay quiescent-I will wager that she is probably pulling all the strings by my troth!’
It was not hard in truth for quick-witted Robert to bestir his brother such that by the next day as they rode out for a hunt and nursing a very sore head the younger man spoke the words that Robert had come here for.
‘We will have to fight brother,’ Simple, plain, true.
It was a brilliant January day-cold, crisp and very clear-the sun so bright on the snowy plains that led to the unquiet North Sea, to the East, that it was almost blinding. The hawking party only consisted of the two lords and their immediate guards-the latter rode at a respectful distance behind them.
Robert nodded grimly in acquiescence. ‘We will Thomas. I have been thinking on it. We can count on our own vassals of course: Ranald of Ossory for me, my own Ulster levies and Earl Angus de Cavan of Ormond on your part as well as what you can muster from this county. What of our kinsman, Ewan?’
‘The Earl of Thomond will call raise his levies if I command him to never fear brother!’
Robert unleashed his hawk out to sea. It quickly tracked and in a flash pounced on the unfortunate grouse that had been released-it was no fair fight. It rather made the Prince mindful of their own predicament. He would have to warn his sibling off: ‘Thomas-you must await my signal-do nothing until you have heard from me. We must act in concert in this enterprise or we will be doomed. Between us we can probably raise five, maybe six thousand men. It is only the size of the Royal Army: we must rely on our peers to support our cause!’ As if to underline his point Robert grabbed his brother’s gauntleted hand ‘do nothing rash-do you hear me?’ The intensity of his gaze and the tightness with which he squeezed made the younger man so uncomfortable that he pulled his bruised limb sharply away.
‘I hear you brother-there is no need to be so peremptory-we are not back in the nursery now. I too am a great Lord and have commanded levies. Why should you get all the glory?’
Robert did not like the way the conversation was headed so immediately struck a more emollient tone, ‘of course you are Thomas-I just want our plan to succeed with all my heart. When I am King then you will be richly rewarded.’
This had the desired effect and so placated and with their hawks well exercised they returned to the shelter of the mighty stone castle. But as they rode Robert could not quite shake off a sense of looming unease, something about the prickliness of Thomas that made him wonder if he was right to trust him in so great an endeavour.
With the Christmas festivities over Robert took his leave of his brother a few days later, returning to Ireland and his own estates to plan and prepare imagining that he could do so at his own leisure and so it was with a deep sense of shock that his Chancellor interrupted him one morning with dread news: the King-or rather his Council- had sent out Commissions of Array to all parts of the realm for a general muster. The cause of the summons was not made clear but no Lord or Duke was exempt. Robert had felt a cold sweat run down his back at this-it was imperative that they hold their nerve. Call their levies, yes but not for the King and not yet. Let them see how many Lords answered the call first.
Two days after these tidings worse was to follow. This time it was his own wife, her olive skin somehow looking pasty white with shock, who told him the news that he had long dreaded would come: ‘your brother has declared his nephew a Pretender and has raised his banners in war husband-what hare-brained scheme thought he to carry out without you?’ Adrianne was carrying a letter, which she handed to him as though handing him a dose of the pox. Heart hammering in his chest Robert of Leinster read the impassioned missive:
Brother I trust this letter finds you well! I could not wait. The Usurper and his Council’s overweening order to raise our banners in some as yet unnamed venture was more than I could stomach. The game is afoot! I hope that you will join me in our great adventure.
Thomas of Munster
‘Adventure! ADVENTURE!’ Robert exploded, ‘he sees this as an adventure by God’s blood! The fool-he has damned himself and has damned us all to hell with his rashness.’
And with that the Lord of Leinster slumped in the nearest chair seemingly a beaten man.
Afterword:
It seemed that the Duke of Leinster’s gloomy premonition was correct. By issuing a general summons of all his vassals the Council were able to pre-emptively muster not one, but two Royal Armies, one in North Wales numbering some seven thousand, the other at Scone of nine thousand. The latter included the formidable Royal Standing Army. For his own part Thomas of Munster managed to raise a mere two thousand in Northumberland. His elder brother did not rise in rebellion as expected even though Thomas was able to call upon the support of an impressive array of high ranking magnates including: Earl Radulf of Gwent (The King’s mother’s erstwhile lover), Earl Pasgen of Clydesdale, Duke Uhtred of Lothian, Earl David of Perfeddwlad, Duchess Marthoc of Deheubarth and Countess Mariotta of Fife. The problem was that the rebels were scattered: a few thousand in Wales, two thousand in southern Ireland and Thomas’s own force. They were too widely scattered to join forces and had two sizeable royal armies interposed between them and so were utterly defeated in a series of set piece battles throughout 1236 at Berwick, Perth, Mitford and Nenagh.
In July of that year Prince Thomas of Munster was brought in chains before his king at the Royal Palace of Scone. The fair headed, attractive youngster had been imperious in his judgement that his Uncle was to be cast into the dreaded Oubliette for his insolence. It escaped no one’s attention that behind the young sovereign sat his gloating mother, Marthoc.
Not two months later The Queen Mother declared herself Regent.
Meanwhile upon his estates in Ireland the Duke of Leinster sat and waited…
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
Modern day Bamburgh Castle
It was as well that castles built in the Norman way by the English and more latterly the Scots were sturdy affairs, thought Robert of Leinster as he took up station by the warming hearth on this most chill of evenings. The barren fens of Northumberland were inhospitable at the best of times let alone in a most frigid and cheerless mid winter. He was hoping that his younger brother Thomas could provide him more heart-warming fare-for of that from the Capital there was none.
‘Forced off the Council brother! That was an unspeakable outrage!’ The younger Prince spluttered forcing a tankard of warm mulled ale to his lips, his beard bristling with pent up fury. ‘Who was responsible for this think you? I will wager that it was that hellspawn Mac Ragnaill-he has always misliked us!’
‘Which one?’ Robert replied with a tight smile stopping his brother short, ‘they multiply like flies since our father’s favour fell on them. As it happens my place has been taken by our good, true friend Adam of Cornwall…’
‘I knew it!’ Exploded Thomas, ‘the whoresons have always resented us for our closeness to the crown! Now they have three on the Council alone, guiding our new King!’ This last was spat out with a fiery intensity. The Duke of Munster and Earl of Northumberland had none of his elder brother’s guile, cunning or martial ability but one thing he was, and had always been, was utterly loyal to his immediate kin.
For his part Robert could only nod mutely with a weary resignation. He had always known that it would come to this if their father died whilst the boy was still in his minority-and so it had come to pass. Their father was scarce in the grave when peremptory word reached him from the Council’s mouthpiece and Chaplain, Bishop Gilchrist of Dunkeld, that the young King thanked him for his years of loyal service but a new order was now in place at the king’s pleasure and he was to be replaced forthwith. ‘The wily Bishop’ they called him in some ecclesiastical circles-the man’s intelligence was not in doubt. All Robert had done was throw the piece of vellum that confirmed his removal at the prelate’s feet and curtly told him to get out of his chambers.
He had had plenty of time to ponder this new turn of fortune’s wheel as he both mourned his beloved father and licked his wounds on his verdant estates in Ulster. The vicissitudes of fate that determined that the crown was to pass to his traitorous brother’s son rather than to him was too galling to bear-oh for the ancient Celtic laws of Tanistry! As the autumn leaves turned brown and the trees became bare and the first chills of the gathering winter approached Robert stopped feeling sorry for himself and began to harden his heart. How could this situation be turned to his advantage? One thing was for sure he was a hero in a large number of Scots and Irish hearts, having fought loyally by his father’s side for so many years. He had not turned his back on ‘The Magnificent’ like his brother had so surely, most reasoned, this puissant paladin-Earl of Ulster and Baron Dunluce-the Duke of Leinster no less, should be next in line and therefore the new king?
And as word reached him from his spies at court how Farquhar’s advisors had arranged a sterling betrothal to Irmele, the youngest of the Karling princesses in East Francia, Robert knew that they had to act before the boy became a man-he was already fourteen-no stripling and wise beyond his years if accounts were to be believed.
It had not been difficult to persuade his Greek wife that they should spend their Christmas court at his brother’s castle of Bamburgh on his sprawling Northumberland estates. The two families were close, his wife Adrianne related to his brother’s Evanthia, both having a shared culture and experience of being brought up in the messy politics of the Byzantine court. His daughters, Dervorgilla and Lorna were also close to his twin nieces and both had squealed with delight when Robert announced, one morning, that this was his intent.
The dark and dusky eyes of his paramour had appraised her husband intently, her interest and curiosity piqued by his studied nonchalance and it was only after shooing the girls away to their needlework classes that she had taken him by the chin and said, ‘but it is not to while away yuletide with your kin that you really want to go to Northumberland is it my love? I smell a plot brewing.’
Robert had shifted uncomfortably in his settle. She was too damned good at eking out subterfuge wherever it might lurk-was why he had asked her to be his spymaster in Leinster. He had told her, of course-they had few secrets but he swore her to silence. At this stage he wanted only his brother to know what he was planning.
And so some weeks later here he was in what was once mighty England, stirring the pot. If his brother were to join him in this venture then he would need to do so of his own free will…with a push of course. The ladies had retired to their quarters, their daughters long in bed and most of the castle’s inhabitants similarly asleep. Just he, his brother, a flagon of strong mulled ale (he’d not had to do much persuading of the kitchen cook to make it twice as strong as normal-a carelessly tossed silver crown saw to that…) and a litany of resentments.
‘Why could our esteemed father not see what everyone else could brother? That rebels whelp should succeed to the Stone of Destiny when it should have been yours. There is no justice in this land…’
‘Indeed Thomas and it is only like to get worse when the “whelp” as you call him reaches his majority.’
Munster looked up, his eyes red, ‘why brother? Worse-how so?’
‘Think on it Thomas. The King loves us not-we disputed his claim to the throne from the start. Now every day that he is in the grip of the Mac Ragnaill’s they will be poisoning his mind against us…’ Robert sighed exaggeratedly, ‘today it is my council seat, tomorrow who knows?’
Thomas’s eyes widened in shock ‘they would not dare! You are a hero to these realms-all know it! And the most loyal son our father could have had. None would imperil that surely?’
Robert sank back in his chair, shoulders slumping, ‘it is not our young king that I fear-rather the nest of vipers that he has surrounded himself with. You think that scheming mother of his will stay quiescent-I will wager that she is probably pulling all the strings by my troth!’
It was not hard in truth for quick-witted Robert to bestir his brother such that by the next day as they rode out for a hunt and nursing a very sore head the younger man spoke the words that Robert had come here for.
‘We will have to fight brother,’ Simple, plain, true.
It was a brilliant January day-cold, crisp and very clear-the sun so bright on the snowy plains that led to the unquiet North Sea, to the East, that it was almost blinding. The hawking party only consisted of the two lords and their immediate guards-the latter rode at a respectful distance behind them.
Robert nodded grimly in acquiescence. ‘We will Thomas. I have been thinking on it. We can count on our own vassals of course: Ranald of Ossory for me, my own Ulster levies and Earl Angus de Cavan of Ormond on your part as well as what you can muster from this county. What of our kinsman, Ewan?’
‘The Earl of Thomond will call raise his levies if I command him to never fear brother!’
Robert unleashed his hawk out to sea. It quickly tracked and in a flash pounced on the unfortunate grouse that had been released-it was no fair fight. It rather made the Prince mindful of their own predicament. He would have to warn his sibling off: ‘Thomas-you must await my signal-do nothing until you have heard from me. We must act in concert in this enterprise or we will be doomed. Between us we can probably raise five, maybe six thousand men. It is only the size of the Royal Army: we must rely on our peers to support our cause!’ As if to underline his point Robert grabbed his brother’s gauntleted hand ‘do nothing rash-do you hear me?’ The intensity of his gaze and the tightness with which he squeezed made the younger man so uncomfortable that he pulled his bruised limb sharply away.
‘I hear you brother-there is no need to be so peremptory-we are not back in the nursery now. I too am a great Lord and have commanded levies. Why should you get all the glory?’
Robert did not like the way the conversation was headed so immediately struck a more emollient tone, ‘of course you are Thomas-I just want our plan to succeed with all my heart. When I am King then you will be richly rewarded.’
This had the desired effect and so placated and with their hawks well exercised they returned to the shelter of the mighty stone castle. But as they rode Robert could not quite shake off a sense of looming unease, something about the prickliness of Thomas that made him wonder if he was right to trust him in so great an endeavour.
With the Christmas festivities over Robert took his leave of his brother a few days later, returning to Ireland and his own estates to plan and prepare imagining that he could do so at his own leisure and so it was with a deep sense of shock that his Chancellor interrupted him one morning with dread news: the King-or rather his Council- had sent out Commissions of Array to all parts of the realm for a general muster. The cause of the summons was not made clear but no Lord or Duke was exempt. Robert had felt a cold sweat run down his back at this-it was imperative that they hold their nerve. Call their levies, yes but not for the King and not yet. Let them see how many Lords answered the call first.
Two days after these tidings worse was to follow. This time it was his own wife, her olive skin somehow looking pasty white with shock, who told him the news that he had long dreaded would come: ‘your brother has declared his nephew a Pretender and has raised his banners in war husband-what hare-brained scheme thought he to carry out without you?’ Adrianne was carrying a letter, which she handed to him as though handing him a dose of the pox. Heart hammering in his chest Robert of Leinster read the impassioned missive:
Brother I trust this letter finds you well! I could not wait. The Usurper and his Council’s overweening order to raise our banners in some as yet unnamed venture was more than I could stomach. The game is afoot! I hope that you will join me in our great adventure.
Thomas of Munster
‘Adventure! ADVENTURE!’ Robert exploded, ‘he sees this as an adventure by God’s blood! The fool-he has damned himself and has damned us all to hell with his rashness.’
And with that the Lord of Leinster slumped in the nearest chair seemingly a beaten man.
Afterword:
It seemed that the Duke of Leinster’s gloomy premonition was correct. By issuing a general summons of all his vassals the Council were able to pre-emptively muster not one, but two Royal Armies, one in North Wales numbering some seven thousand, the other at Scone of nine thousand. The latter included the formidable Royal Standing Army. For his own part Thomas of Munster managed to raise a mere two thousand in Northumberland. His elder brother did not rise in rebellion as expected even though Thomas was able to call upon the support of an impressive array of high ranking magnates including: Earl Radulf of Gwent (The King’s mother’s erstwhile lover), Earl Pasgen of Clydesdale, Duke Uhtred of Lothian, Earl David of Perfeddwlad, Duchess Marthoc of Deheubarth and Countess Mariotta of Fife. The problem was that the rebels were scattered: a few thousand in Wales, two thousand in southern Ireland and Thomas’s own force. They were too widely scattered to join forces and had two sizeable royal armies interposed between them and so were utterly defeated in a series of set piece battles throughout 1236 at Berwick, Perth, Mitford and Nenagh.
In July of that year Prince Thomas of Munster was brought in chains before his king at the Royal Palace of Scone. The fair headed, attractive youngster had been imperious in his judgement that his Uncle was to be cast into the dreaded Oubliette for his insolence. It escaped no one’s attention that behind the young sovereign sat his gloating mother, Marthoc.
Meanwhile upon his estates in Ireland the Duke of Leinster sat and waited…
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Hmmm. So much for Thomas. For now, anyway...
It leads me to wonder if Farquhar will truly be as weak-willed as Robert fears when he reaches his majority. Certainly Robert's not going to get much by way of benefit of the doubt, being a heretic - but we never know.
And I'm happy, of course, to see the return to a more narrative-heavy style, though I note that you did the history-book format quite well, too! (I think the college lecture chapter was one of your more brilliant, to be honest.)
Do keep up the good writing, Asantahene!
It leads me to wonder if Farquhar will truly be as weak-willed as Robert fears when he reaches his majority. Certainly Robert's not going to get much by way of benefit of the doubt, being a heretic - but we never know.
And I'm happy, of course, to see the return to a more narrative-heavy style, though I note that you did the history-book format quite well, too! (I think the college lecture chapter was one of your more brilliant, to be honest.)
Do keep up the good writing, Asantahene!
Revan thanks so much for your supportive words. Really much appreciated
As for the boy king lets just say he is wise beyond his years-watch this space
As for the boy king lets just say he is wise beyond his years-watch this space
OOOoohh...a succession crisis! Good job crushing it, the brothers seem intent to cause trouble! With the Queen Mother now in politics, she seems intent to keep her brothers down.
Nice alliances you got there, with the HRE and Byzantines, right?
Nice alliances you got there, with the HRE and Byzantines, right?
Hey GUG It is indeed a succession crisis so much fun to come
and yes there were alliances with Byzantines but have expired on the accession of the new king. With the East Franks, yes but for some reason it never became the HRE in my game
For all those still reading sorry my posts are so infrequent. It's just I've been mad busy with wedding preps recently. Getting married to my beautiful fiancé in a couple weeks so not much time for updates. I've just got back from a week's stag party in Ibiza so you can imagine...o
Anyhow post Sept 6th (the big day) I expect to have much more time to spend on this AAR. It's not been forgotten and the game is going well
Thanks for your patience
oAnyhow post Sept 6th (the big day) I expect to have much more time to spend on this AAR. It's not been forgotten and the game is going well
Thanks for your patience